Saturday, February 4, 2017

The Necessary Conditions For a Resistance

I am lucky enough to have a number of online friends. They are no less real to me, and no less important to me, for being online. In many cases I have never encountered their physical selves, but still I feel as if I know their hearts and minds as well as my own.

A few years ago I flew to Canada to stay with one such friend. Madness, suggested a few of my local friends. Dangerous, judged some members of my family. My mother had just died after an excruciating period of dying, and I was in no mood to listen to cautionary tales. If anything, I was ready to be seduced by risk.

When my friend greeted me at the airport, I quite literally fell into her arms, and felt more at home in the world than I had in months. Her sweet young daughter won me over in short order and effectively sealed the deal.

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So when yesterday an online friend wrote a cryptic note that contained apologies to specific people in his life, I, like many others, grew frantic. Within an hour this man's network had mobilized to make sure that he was found safe and well. And in the end he was that: safe and well. Oh, it is for him to speak to his state of mind, not for me, but if there was a crisis, it seems reasonable to suggest that it was averted.

How beautiful, to watch so many good people do good. I am certain that he feels the beauty in everyone's love, because I know him, despite our never having met.

And of course it is also beautiful to have my friend come back to us, if in fact he was ever in danger of leaving.

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This is the good I need to remember when I wake up, before I turn to the day's news, before I remember who is the President of the United States. Without the good I don't think I could keep trying to resist. Without it I might grow as weary as I believe the Trump administration expects I will.

Without the second graders who make me laugh daily, my hope might turn brittle and crack. Without, for example, one of them referring to a friend's great sense of 'hummer.' Without their ever-present laughter and lightness.

What I have, and what you have, I am sure, is worth everything (worth honoring, worth preserving). Once we remember that, resisting all the wrongs seems natural. Essential. And ever so easy.

3 comments:

I hear you. It is hard, up here in Canada, looking out over a vista of dog-printed snow, serene, clean, to even imagine what it must be like to have to try to keep Trump's Great Again America from overwhelming reason. Even when a home-grown nut has just shot up a mosque, reason seems to prevail here. Mostly. Just got a newsletter about our local Syrian refugee families that is full of positive news and plans a party to celebrate their integration and other successes.I am very glad that you are part of my life!